Vasil Kolev > Vasil's Quotes

“А от съседната излизаха тълпа мъхнати деца, явно изпълзели от някое тайно гробище в някой заден двор: бяха намерили убиеца си и сега крачеха, пееха страховито и размахваха като трофеи разчленени крайници. Странна подробност, която Инеб забеляза: разкъсаният убиец, изглежда, беше изключителен с това, че имаше три ръце, освен ако децата не бяха проявили невнимание, както правят обикновено децата, или пък не знаеха да броят добре. Все едно, хлапетата бяха щастливи, а щастието е хубаво нещо, нали?”
― Steven Erikson, Bauchelain and Korbal Broach

“The greatest enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
― George Orwell

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

“Drinking wine and wearing trousers were nothing compared to reading the history of ideas.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe.”
― Frank Herbert

“Don't be fooled by the many books on complexity or by the many complex and arcane algorithms you find in this book or elsewhere. Although there are no textbooks on simplicity, simple systems work and complex don't.”
― James Nicholas "Jim" Gray

“A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?"
"Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

“I would like to be judged on the validity of my arguments, not as a victim.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.”
― Alan Moore, Watchmen

“Someday someone is going to create a stir by proposing a radical new tool for the study people. It will be called the face-value technique. It would be based on the premise that people often do what they do for the reasons they think they do. The use of this technique will lead to many pitfalls, for it is undeniably true that people do not always act logically or say what they mean. But I wonder if it would produce findings any more unscientific than the opposite course.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”
― Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver

“The I.B.M. machine has no ethic of its own; what it does is enable one or two people to do the computing work that formerly required many more people. If people often use it stupidly, it's their stupidity, not the machine's, and a return to the abacus would not exorcise the failing. People can be treated as drudges just as effectively without modern machines.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“(What Jim had seen tallied with studies conducted after the Second World
War by the military historian General S.L.A. Marshall. He interviewed thousands of American infantrymen and concluded that only 15-20 per cent of them had actually shot to kill. The rest had fired high or not fired at all, busying themselves however else they could. And 98 per cent of the soldiers who did shoot to kill were later found to have been deeply traumatized by their actions. The other 2 per cent were diagnosed as ‘aggressive psychopathic personalities’, who basically didn’t mind killing people under any circumstances, at home or abroad.
The conclusion—in the words of Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman of the Killology Research Group—was: ‘there is something about continuous, inescapable combat which will drive 98 per cent of all men insane, and the other 2 per cent were crazy when they got there’.)”
― Jon Ronson, Them: Adventures with Extremists

“Daisy looked up at him with the kind of expression that Jesus might have given someone who had just explained that he was probably allergic to bread and fishes, so could He possibly do him a quick chicken salad...”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour.”
― Charles Stross, Rule 34

“Ставаш психиатър за да си изписваш сам халоперидол.”
― Калин Терзийски, Лудост

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.”
― Neil Gaiman

“[D]on't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read...”
― Neil Gaiman

“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.”
― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it.”
― Alan Moore, Absolute Watchmen

“Swamp Thing, in Hell: "Demon...How...could God...allow such a place?

Etrigan: Think you God built this place, wishing man ill and not lusts uncontrolled or swords unsheathed?

Not God, my friend. The truth's more hideous still: These halls were carved by men while yet they breathed.

God is no parent or policeman grim dispensing treats or punishments to all.

Each soul climbs or descends by its own whim. He mourns, but He cannot prevent their fall.

We suffer as we choose. Nothing's amiss. All torments are deserved...”
― Alan Moore

“When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

“Things always become obvious after the fact”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops.”
― Amos Oz

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, and devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.”
― Neal Stephenson

“Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young marines on their way to Guadalcanal?"

Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long. The memories are still as fresh as last night's eleventh nighmare: ten plucky Nips in Suicide Charge!

"Just kill the one with the sword first."

"Ah," Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eyebrows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe's direction. "Smarrrt--you target them because they're the officers, right?"

"No, fuckhead!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got fucking swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a fucking sword?”
― Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon